


unknown variables

by sibley (ferns)



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Femslash February, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Kinda, Roommates, Season 4 AU, also kinda?, complicated au.., genuinely idk whats going on, take continuity & crumple it in a ball & throw it away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-13
Updated: 2018-02-13
Packaged: 2019-03-17 13:46:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13660260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ferns/pseuds/sibley
Summary: In which Iris falls in love with a princess from another world who thinks Iris is the most beautiful person in the multiverse and is almostimpossiblybad at flirting.





	unknown variables

**Author's Note:**

  * For [UrbanCuntemporary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrbanCuntemporary/gifts).



> Happy birthday....this is so late but it's finished and that's what matters. I hope this lives up to your expectations and isn't too terrible.

Iris doesn’t particularly like unknown variables when it comes to the fate of the world.

Unfortunately, interdimensional princesses are full of them.

She’s standing in the middle of downtown Central City, seemingly uncaring to the destruction that her arrival caused all around her. The breach she came through has long since dissipated, but the wreckage that the massive tear caused remains. It was different from the breaches Cisco uses-less like a random rip in the fabric of reality and more like a calculated slice. Maybe that’s why it almost sucked in twenty cars that are all currently blasting their alarms.

The only clue Iris has to the fact that she’s both royalty and the girl they’ve been waiting for is that she’s wearing a thin gold circlet on her head identical to the one set into the chest of the man (if there even really was a man inside of that blue and gold and white suit) who breached onto Earth-1 outside their doorstep three days ago, asking for asylum for his daughter. Of course none of them had trusted him-Breacher, he had said his name was. But they could help someone without trusting them.

The stiff black leather jacket the princess is wearing offsets her royal look a little bit, as do the heavy combat-looking boots, while the layered red and gold shirt and skirt she’s wearing under it look like they wouldn’t be out of place at a farmer’s market. She certainly doesn’t _look_ very alien. Nothing like the man who claimed to be her father.

Cisco parks the STAR Labs van and gives her a thumbs up as Iris smiles shakily at him and gets out and onto the street. The pedestrians all ran from the breach, so she’s almost entirely alone as she walks up to their potential guest, close enough that she can see the smattering of freckles across her nose.

Iris squares her shoulders and wonders what this royal stranger will think of her. “Hey there.” She tries to sound more confident than she is. She’s not exactly well rehearsed with interdimensional diplomacy. “Are you…” Iris remembers the name Breacher gave them. “Are you Cynthia?”

“I am.” Cynthia’s face lights up. “Are you the Flash?”

It takes Iris a few seconds to absorb that. There’s an accent to her voice-English is her second language, and Iris can’t quite place what her first would be. She hadn’t noticed it with Breacher because she’d been too busy trying not to stare at the energy leaking out of the joints in his suit. “Uh, no. I’m not. But I spoke to your, uh, to your dad, and we’re going to be helping him keep you safe for awhile.”

“I assure you, I’m more than capable of taking care of myself.” Cynthia’s eyes gleam and Iris takes a very small step back when she realizes that she didn’t imagine them flickering bright red. The eeriness of it is only countered by the giant grin on her face that makes her nose scrunch up. It’s… Cute. Shit.

“I believe you,” Iris promises, “but right now I think the best thing for us to do is go back to STAR Labs-that’s kind of where we base everything out of-and… Figure the rest of this out, okay? My friend Cisco is in that van, just… Follow me.”

Iris watches Cynthia out of the corner of her eye as they head back to the van. She looks completely normal-dark skin and eyes and hair and lots and lots of freckles. She’s obviously got _some_ sort of power, if the flickering in her eyes was anything to go by, but seeing someone’s eyes turn red for two seconds doesn’t give you any hints on what that power might be, and Iris is pretty sure it would be taken as rude for her to ask.

Cisco waves at Cynthia when she climbs into the back of the van, looking around at the mess of shelves and fallen supplies that are also back there with her with a great deal of interest. “I’m Cisco. Great to meet you. Cynthia, right?”

Cynthia inclines her head. “That’s me.” She picks up a wrench and hefts it in her hand. Iris cranes her neck so she can keep an eye on her and watches her drop the wrench only to pick up a screwdriver and mime throwing it like a knife toward the back of the van. “Are you taking me to the Flash?”

“Uh, kinda.” Cisco shrugs, keeping his eyes on the road. “He’s either at STAR Labs or at his girlfriend’s house right now. Or out, you know, fighting crime. And we’re going to STAR Labs. So there’s a chance he’ll be there. Why? Did your dad tell you about him?”

“Yes.” Cynthia diverts her full attention to Cisco. “He told me he’s easy to defeat in a fight and has a good heart that’s going to get him into very deep trouble one day.”

“Well, he’s not wrong about that second part,” Iris mutters, momentarily looking away from Cynthia to exchange a look with Cisco. He knows how she feels about the people she loves being put in danger. Even if it’s their choice, she still doesn’t like it. Wants to protect them even if she supports them. She gets it from her dad.

“I’d like to meet him.” Cynthia goes quiet and Iris gets ready to break the silence before it gets awkward. Before she can, however-“Your facility-are you sure it’s safe for me to be there?”

“You’ll be well protected,” Cisco promises. “It’s just a few blocks away-”

“Not because of me,” Cynthia interrupts. “Is it safe for all of _you_ for me to be there? My mother… She has her claws in every corner of the multiverse. Daddy-I mean-my father has put a block on this world to protect me. I’d like to think it’s to protect all of you, too, but… If something happens to the facility because it was used to harbor me, will all of you be safe?”

Iris pauses. That’s not what she was expecting to be a concern for a runaway princess. “Yeah. I think so. There’s a bunch of us who work out of there, so it should be fine-Cisco and my-and the Flash and Ralph-well, Ralph’s on his honeymoon with Sue so maybe not right now-and Jesse when she’s not at Quickstart. People who can handle themselves. And you won’t be there most of the time.”

Iris didn’t voice her suspicions that her apartment, where she assumed Cynthia would be staying (or at least sleeping) would be put in extreme danger by having her stay there. It was _way_ less defended than STAR Labs was. Sure, she could always call for help if things got really bad, but… No. It’d be fine.

Cynthia makes a small noise. Iris isn’t sure if it’s of disbelief or resignation.

Cisco whistles as he parks the van in the STAR Labs parking lot and jumps out. “C’mon, let’s see if the Flash is here.”

As it turned out, the Flash was very much there. Being disgustingly affectionate with his girlfriend in the middle of the Cortex. Cisco dramatically claps both of his hands over his eyes and rushes over to them. “We have _rules_ about PDA in here for a reason!”

“Nobody else was here except for us!” Wally points out, laughing as he pulls back from Linda. “It’s not a _public display of affection_ if it’s not public!”

Cynthia looks at Wally with interest. “You’re the Flash?”

“In the flesh,” he says cheerfully, looping his arm around Linda’s shoulder. “You can call me Wally if you want.” He ignores the way Iris is glaring daggers at him for revealing his secret identity-Cynthia couldn’t tell anyone his name if she had only seen his face. Now she knew both. “This is Linda.”

“You’re shorter than I expected,” Cynthia says, standing on her toes and leaning back as she looks up at him. Iris can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or not but privately stifles a little giggle at the good ten inches that Wally has on her. “I think my father and Iris were right about you.”

“Uh, thanks, I guess?” Wally shrugs. Linda snickers. “So, do you know where you’re going to be staying?”

“...Aren’t I staying here?” Cynthia looks at Linda. “Do you live here, too?”

“Nope. I live alone across town.” Linda squeezes Wally’s hand. “Hopefully not alone for too long, though.”

“Cynthia, I thought your dad told you that you were going to be staying at my place.” Iris frowns. “The lab-I mean, if you want to stay here you can, we can set up a bedroom, but…”

“I guess I just assumed…” Cynthia shakes her head before she frowns and reaches up to take the crown off her head. She fiddles with it. “I don’t want to put any of you in danger. Are you sure it wouldn’t be safer for me to be here where none of the rest of you could get hurt if my mother sends her-sends her Hound after me?”

“You said your dad put a block on our world to protect you. She can’t get through that.” Iris tries to be soothing. She’s got no experience comforting people on the run from the dictator of their world who also happens to be their mother, but when she was little she had a friend who would sleep over at her house most nights because of her dad and she trusted Iris enough to keep her safe. This isn’t too different.

“She’ll find a way around it, one day,” Cynthia says bleakly. Her eyes are flickering red again, but it’s more like a very sad and pathetic scarlet strobe light than it is like the angry glare it was before.

“And we’ll be ready for her when she does,” Iris promises, looking at Wally.

He nods. “Cisco will see her coming before she’s even had a chance to stick her head into our world. I promise.”

Cynthia shakes her head slowly, and there’s a long silence before Iris coughs and reaches out to touch Cynthia’s upper arm. “So, do you want to come back to my apartment and see where you’ll be staying?”

* * *

Here are some of the things Iris West now knows about Cynthia Reynolds-Mordeth of Earth-19, the princess of Piradell and the surrounding wastelands:

She has extremely vivid nightmares every single night. She doesn’t scream during them, but Iris can tell she’s having them because she wakes up and wanders around Iris’s apartment like she’s looking for something she’ll never find. It’s irritating enough to keep Iris up at night but she’s not going to deny anyone, much less a guest, the chance to work through their dreams. Iris used to do the same thing. Hell, she still does it when the thoughts of-of everything that’s happened get to be too much.

She only brought a few small things with her over from Earth-19, which she keeps in a little bag on the table next to Iris’s bed (Iris has been generously taking the couch and pretending that she wasn’t doing that before Cynthia got there because the big bed is still just too painful) that Iris doesn’t look into. Cynthia hasn’t told her not to, and all of Iris wants to snoop inside of it, but she won’t. For now. Unless Cynthia proves to be dangerous. Well, more dangerous. Because…

She’s dangerous. Extremely, extremely, extremely dangerous. Not just because of her still secret metahuman powers, but because of how she can turn anything into a weapon. Not always a very good weapon, but still a weapon. The first time a spider got into her room she broke her water glass into pieces and started throwing them at the spider, which was definitely _not_ what Iris had been talking about when she said to use the glass to trap it. It’s… Actually kind of endearing how fearless she is about everything else except for spiders.

She picks things up fast. Things like how Iris doesn’t like to talk at a certain time of night, or be asked why she’s been sleeping on the couch for months, or that most people don’t climb around on the fire escape every morning even if it is ‘a good workout’ (at least according to her). It’s almost uncanny how quickly she figured out the layout of the kitchenette and where everything was. She also picked up on Iris’s thing about the picture frames. And the big bed Cynthia’s been sleeping in.

She is _full_ of unknown variables. From her powers to her mystery bag which has absolutely no items of clothing inside of it (Iris has lent her some of hers. She was expecting them to be a little bit too big, but luckily they're close enough in size to each other that it's not noticeable. Unfortunately, what Iris can’t help but notice is how good Cynthia looks in them) for some reason to her world, which she never talks about unless it’s to talk about how good it is with a twisted expression on her face that makes her freckles pop.

Iris is pretty sure that if she were letting herself feel emotions again, she would be in love.

Here are some of the things Cynthia Reynolds-Mordeth now knows about Iris West, former barista and current star reporter for the Central City Picture News:

She has nightmares. A lot of them. She wakes up choking and gasping from them, and Cynthia stays still and quiet wherever she is in the house until she hears her reluctant roommate go back to sleep. She doesn’t actually know what it is that Iris is dreaming about that upsets her so much, but sometimes she hears little snippets of words-Iris crying out the names of the people that she cares about, voice strangled and full of fear. Like she’s seeing them die.

She loves her family and her friends with everything she’s got. So much that Cynthia sometimes wonders how she’s not bursting with it. Seeing her interact with Wally-the-Flash and Cisco and Linda and talk on the phone with the missing Sue and her apparently very loud husband makes something inside her twist. Like it wants all of this for herself. Cynthia tells herself firmly that this is only temporary. Once her mother is gone, Cynthia will leave and her and Iris will forget the other even existed.

She doesn’t like it when things are out of her control. That doesn’t mean she holds back from taking risks that put herself in danger-although it does mean she dislikes doing things that could hurt her friends and family if they somehow go wrong-which is something Cynthia tries and fails not to be concerned about. But Iris dislikes unknowns. Cynthia is an unknown. She does the math herself.

She keeps almost all of the pictures in her house flipped face down so that the glass is on the table. The ones that she doesn’t keep flipped like that are all of her and her brother, or her and Cisco, or her and a woman with dark skin and friendly eyes who Iris tells her is named Sue when Cynthia asks about her. There are some of her when she is younger with someone who must be her dad. But most of them aren’t visible. Cynthia doesn’t look at them. Iris seems sad. Hopefully changing the pictures will make her happy.

She’s prettier than all the women in the apparently trashy magazines that keep showing up in Iris’s house because she can’t bring herself to cancel her subscriptions to them. She reads them and then lets Cynthia read them (she pretends to understand the significance of all the stuff they’re talking about) and then keeps them in a stack on her coffee table. Iris says it’s a routine that’s hard to break. Cynthia doesn’t mind, she just wishes she understood what was going on in them.

Cynthia is pretty sure she might be in love.

* * *

 

It’s been three months and there’s been almost no change. Cynthia is still living with her. Wally is still the Flash. Ralph and Sue are back from their honeymoon. Iris is still avoiding her dad and the knowledge that she needs to see a therapist sometime soon. Every now and then a little breach opens with a message and a small bottle attached to it. Cynthia pockets the bottle and translates the message for Iris-always the same thing. _‘No change.’_

Cynthia and Iris talk to each other more now out of necessity. There’s nobody else to talk to. Oh, Wally and Linda (who have finally moved in together) come over for dinner every Friday, Hartley drops by on occasion to say hello (though he’s always been more Wally’s friend than Iris’s), Iris spends a lot of time with Linda both during work and out of it at STAR Labs, and Cisco is a more than constant presence, but… At night it’s just the two of them with nothing else to do.

Cynthia tells Iris stories about her world, pretending that it’s to brag and not because she likes the way Iris’s faces lights up when she hears about something particularly interesting that could perhaps be implemented on her own Earth.

Iris talks about dumb stuff Wally and Cisco have done, like about the shrimp cannon and the many, many races around the world that they both cheated at, and the Halloween-time pranks that they both pulled on each other. She avoids talking about herself as much as she can. She’s not sure why. Or maybe she is, but she doesn’t want to admit it to herself.

At some point, Cynthia obviously catches on, because she sets down her mug of hot chocolate-something she’s fallen in love with that they apparently don’t have on Earth-19-and waits patiently for Iris to finish her story about one of the many times Linda has saved Wally from various supervillains before speaking up. “I want to hear about _you._ I like Wally, and Linda, and Cisco, but I want to hear about you.”

She could have asked one of the others to tell her more about Iris. But Iris’s voice is… Pleasant to listen to. Iris is pleasant to listen to. And look at. And talk to. And live near. Getting attachments to people on this Earth had been something her father warned her against, but… Well… one singular very strictly platonic attachment despite Cynthia’s feelings otherwise because Iris didn’t seem to realize she was flirting with her couldn’t hurt, right?

Iris shrugs a little and swallows down all the real reasons why she doesn’t like to tell stories about herself. “I’m not a very important person to talk about. I’m not a superhero.”

“Of course you’re an interesting person.” Cynthia blinks. How could Iris _not_ be an interesting person? Reporters were interesting people on this Earth. Linda was a reporter and she was very interesting and Iris told stories about her all the time. Iris worked with _superheroes!_ Iris lived here, on Earth-1, which was so very different from Cynthia’s own world. How could she not think of herself as an interesting person?

Iris swallows again. “Well, I-I guess I’m an interesting person. But there’s… I don’t want to talk about myself.”

“You should.” Iris is pretty sure she isn’t imagining Cynthia’s blush or how warm her own cheeks suddenly are. “I like listening to you talk. And I like hearing about you. And even though I’ve been staying with you, I feel like I only know a little bit about you. I want to know more.”

“That’s… That’s very nice of you…” Iris sighs and looks down and forces her next words out. “But it’s not-I-I lost my fiancé almost two years ago. He’s… He was my best friend growing up. Most of my stories involve him.” Something burns her eyes and her throat feels like it’s getting tighter. She looks back up and hopes Cynthia doesn’t notice how wet her eyes are. Saying the words shouldn’t be this _hard_ after all this time but they are. Fuck. It’s been almost two years and she still can’t-“It’s still too-too recent. Too painful. I’m sorry.”

“Tell me a story that doesn’t involve him, then,” Cynthia invites. She cocks her head to one side and grins. Iris looks away, biting her lip as she orders her stomach to stop fluttering. “You said _most_ of them involve him. Not all of them. I want to hear about _you._ And your life. Even if it’s something kind of silly.”

Iris laughs. It comes out a lot more wet than she was intending and she wipes at her eyes. “You’re right, there are a few stories,” she admits. “Like-when I was in eighth grade, I got in trouble because I broke into the science classroom after hours and freed all the live frogs that we were going to be dissecting tomorrow into the woods across from the school. My dad was so mad at me, but… I think he was also proud of me. I’m not sure if it was for my moral compass or because of how I picked the lock to the school doors, though.”

Cynthia claps her hands over her mouth to stifle her laughter before lowering them back down again with a confused expression. “Wait, what are frogs? And how did you know your mother and father were proud of you?”

“I’ll explain what frogs are another time,” Iris promises. “And I knew my dad was proud of me because he told me so. He said I had a good heart and good skills but that I needed to learn how not to get in trouble with them. I guess I still haven’t really learned that lesson.”

“Hmm. Your father, he loves you?” Cynthia purses her lips thoughtfully. Iris talks about her father often, but she hasn’t actually had the chance to really meet him. She met Cecile, that was very memorable-it was pleasing to finally be taller than someone for once-who Iris said was her father’s girlfriend, but not actually the man himself. Or, equally unfortunately, Iris’s little sister. Cynthia liked kids.

“More than anything,” Iris answers immediately. “And I love him. I just… Haven’t been talking to him very much lately. It’s personal. But I still love him. Like-like how you’re over here, on my Earth, and your father is on Earth-19, so you’re not really talking to each other, but you still love him and you know he loves you.”

It probably wasn’t the best analogy to use, considering that Iris wasn’t speaking to her dad because he disagreed on how she was coping with-with Barry’s loss and thought that she should admit that she had a problem with handling grief and needed to go to therapy, and even though deep down she knew that he was right the last thing she needed was to be policed on her grieving process, while Cynthia’s father was fighting his murderous wife in a devastating world war, but it seemed to make sense to Cynthia and that was what mattered.

“I do love him. And he loves me.” Cynthia leans back on Iris’s couch so that her head is resting against one of the arms and folds her hands onto her stomach. She looks up at the ceiling. Iris tries to look anywhere but at the little exposed patch of skin she can see on Cynthia’s stomach where her shirt got rolled up. “...Do you think we would have been friends? If I had lived here all my life, or if you had lived in Piradell?”

Iris starts at the change of topic, but at least this one won’t make her think about Barry or about the complicated situation with her dad. “If I lived in Piradell… I don’t know. You’re the princess, right? You probably wouldn’t spend time with… I dunno, an ordinary citizen like me.”

“Is that how the princesses on this Earth act?” Cynthia looks at her curiously. When Iris nods, Cynthia huffs. “Trust me, I wouldn’t-I _don’t_ act like that back home. I’m the princess because my mother is the queen. I don’t have any… I mean… It’s not like how it is here, I don’t think. I’m royalty in name only.” She winks at Iris. “And even if I wasn’t, I’d make an exception for you.”

Immediately, Cynthia wishes that she could take it back. She _knew_ she should’ve stuck to just using Cisco’s (patented, according to him) flirting tips instead of trying to improvise. Especially since Iris had just trusted her enough to tell her about her _dead fiancé._

“I’m gonna go, uh, get ready for bed. And research frogs.” Cynthia stands up, horrifyingly aware of the fact that the couch the two of them were sitting on doubles as Iris’s bed. “...See you tomorrow morning.”

Usually, Iris would at least say goodnight to her, but now she just watches Cynthia leave, confused. _This_ is why she doesn’t like unknown variables. Was that flirting? If it wasn’t, how awkward would it be to bring it up tomorrow? If it _was,_ how awkward would it be to bring it up tomorrow? Had she said something wrong to make Cynthia leave so suddenly? And if that had been incredibly poor flirting… Every time Iris thought about being romantically involved with someone else, it was like the engagement ring that she wore on a necklace around her neck started burning her skin.

Barry would want her to move on. Barry would want her to go to therapy like her dad had been advising her to do, like Cisco _was_ doing. Sue had even recommended a few that were good to her from her past experience. She _should_ go to therapy. But going to therapy felt like admitting that she hadn’t recovered with her own methods. Like admitting that the sharp jagged thing inside of her was even there when she’d spent so long pretending it wasn’t.

Tomorrow, maybe, she’ll talk to Cisco. Or to Sue. Or to _anyone_ but her dad who’s told her to go to therapy. She won’t _go,_ she’ll just ask them what it’s like. She used to ask Barry about what his therapy was like. She remembers that. Iris cradles her head in her hands and tries to force herself to get a grip.

Cynthia locks herself in Iris’s bathroom. This had been stupid from the start. _She_ had been stupid from the start. Falling for someone almost the moment you first laid eyes on them was stupid, living with them and trying to keep your feelings for them a secret was stupid, stealthily flirting with them using your new Earth-1 friend’s flirting tips was stupid, all of this was stupid.

 _Especially_ the winking. The winking was the worst part. Oh, god, what had she been _thinking?_ She should never have done that. She’d just-Iris hadn’t seemed to notice when she used any of Cisco’s other tips… And she’d wanted her to notice. She’d wanted beautiful, smart, daring Iris West to notice that Cynthia was flirting with her. _Extremely_ poorly, but still flirting with her.

Maybe winking meant something different on Earth-1. Maybe Cynthia was just blowing something tiny out of proportion. Maybe Iris hadn’t even noticed that she had winked! Maybe-

Iris knocks on the bathroom door and Cynthia falls off the edge of the bathtub where she’s been perched on it. She scrambles to her feet. “Sorry, just a-” She unlocks the bathroom door. “I’m sorry,” she blurts out. “For everything. For the weird flirting. I was-I overstepped my boundaries.”

“No, no, I-I just wanted to brush my teeth,” Iris rushes to say. “It’s-the flirting was fine, if that’s what you were doing. I mean… It made me feel weird, but it was fine. Weird in the good way? I just need to brush my teeth.”

Cynthia awkwardly squeezes by her, biting her lower lip. Earth-1 people were so _weird._ People in general were weird and hard to understand, but it seemed like the ones on Earth-1 were especially so. It made her uncomfortable. Most things about this Earth did.

(Except for Iris, when they were watching Cisco’s recommended movies and Iris would start to drift off to sleep despite her loud protests that she wasn’t tired and her head would come down and rest on Cynthia’s shoulder and she’d think about it for weeks afterward. About how easy it was. How comfortable compared to everything else about Earth-1.)

Cynthia fled to her room-to _Iris’s_ room, which was something she thought about pretty much all the time-and sat on the bed, hugging her knees. Inheriting your father’s paranoia didn’t help much when it came to talking to pretty girls. Particularly when you were forced roommates.

“Hey.” Cynthia looks up and really, really regrets doing so, because goddamn it’s like Iris gets more and more beautiful every time she looks at her. That’s probably a stupid thing to say, right? “Cindy, I didn’t mean to freak you out or anything. I really didn’t even notice-how long have you been trying to flirt with me? Was the winking flirting?”

Oh, right, that’s another thing-the way Iris says her name makes her knees go wobbly. What is it about Iris West that keeps her from thinking straight? (Oh. Maybe that wasn’t the best choice of words.) Cynthia bites her lip. “About two months now. The winking was flirting. Was it not good flirting? I showed you my knives, that was also flirting. And I tried to cook for you, that time I almost burnt down the kitchen, which was flirting too. I thought that… Cisco said…”

“Oh, god, that explains a lot of it. Don’t take Cisco’s advice when it comes to flirting.” Iris shakes her head and sits down on the bed next to Cynthia. Cynthia resists the urge to scoot just a little bit closer. “Or Ralph’s. Or Sue’s. Linda’s and Wally’s and _mine,_ sure, but not theirs. Cisco’s a great guy, but he’s not good at giving flirting advice. It’s one of his few shortcomings.” She pauses. “Wait. He told you to show me your knives?”

“No, but he said it was a good idea. Remember? I showed them to you and then you kind of got this weird look in your eye like you didn’t know if I was threatening you or not so I tried to stop and then I dropped all of them on the floor trying to put them away and we didn’t talk for the rest of the day,” Cynthia recalls.

Iris groans and cradles her head in her hands. “God, right, yeah. That-I mean, it was fun when you were showing me how to use them, that was pretty great, but… That was definitely not the best flirting.”

“I thought it was a good idea,” Cynthia pouts. “...Did you like it? Now that you know I was trying to…” What were the words that Cisco used? “Um, ‘hit on you’?”

“I think I did,” Iris says softly. She squeezes herself. “But you understand why this could never work, right? You live on another world! You’ve got superpowers”- _even if I don’t know what they are_ -“and you’re, well, _you._ I’m me. And there’s still too much-” She hesitates. “I never really dealt with what happened to Barry. I just squished it all down and hoped all the feelings went away. And they didn’t.”

“I understand. I’ll stop if you want me to. Or go back to doing it in the way we do on my world.” Cynthia squeezes her knees and hunches her shoulders inwards. “If I’d known about your dead-about Barry from the start, I wouldn’t’ve… I mean…”

“We tried to get him back, a few times. Before we knew that he was really gone.” Iris bows her head. “If I’d known he wasn’t coming back from the start, maybe I would’ve gone to therapy sooner. Or something. But there’s just… This hope in me that he’ll come back. It’s stupid. I know he’s gone. But I loved him. I don’t want to lose anybody else that I love. It’s happened before. So many times. It’s just… It’s hard for me to take it sometimes.”

“I don’t want to say that I know how you feel,” Cynthia says softly, “because I don’t and I don’t think you want me to lie to you just to make you feel better. But my mom, when she first got infected and started hurting me and my dad… I just kept hoping she’d come back. I thought one day she’d just realize what she was doing was wrong. That she was hurting us. And she never-she never did. She never came back.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know. I thought when you said she was evil, you meant she had always been that way.” Iris’s voice was sympathetic. Neither of them were looking at each other. Cynthia wonders if they would see each other crying if they did. “I knew she had hurt you and Breacher, but…”

“It’s okay. Well, it’s not okay, but I know she’s not coming back now. And if she tries to track me down on this Earth, I won’t let her hurt you,” Cynthia promises. “I swear.”

Now Iris does look at her, eyes soft and sad. She wipes at the tears in her eyes. “Thanks, I guess.”

“You probably don’t want me to stay here anymore, huh?” Cynthia lifts her knees up to her chest. “I get it if you don’t.”

Iris takes one of Cynthia’s hands in hers and considers for a moment the way it makes her feel. She squeezes it and brushes her thumb along the back of Cynthia’s scarred knuckles. It makes her heart beat faster in her throat and something tickle at her lungs. It’s different than how she felt when she looked at Barry. Maybe that’s why she had such a hard time recognizing it for what it was.

“No, no, I want you to stay here. I like having you around.” _You and all your unknown variables._ “I really do.” Iris swallows. “Tomorrow, I’m going to try to schedule a therapy appointment. I’ve really, really put it off for long enough. Just don’t tell my dad I said that. Do you think you could be there? When I make the phone call?”

“Of course!” There’s that smile again and this is an absolutely terrible idea and everything inside of her is telling her to be more rational about this but _screw_ that because Iris is so goddamn tired of trying to lock all of her emotions up in a tiny box where she can’t feel them and where they can’t hurt her.

For some reason, it takes Cynthia three entire seconds to realize that Iris is kissing her and by the time she’s able to process that, the kiss is over and Iris is looking at her utterly starstruck expression with wide and worried eyes.

“Wow,” Cynthia says softly, and Iris is sure she isn’t imagining the glowing gold and red pinpricks dancing in the heart her dark pupils, “who knew all it took for you to kiss me was for us to talk about our deeply-rooted emotional issues.”

Iris can’t help but laugh. It’s more shrill than she intends it to be and she covers her mouth. “I guess so, yeah.”

“How messed up is that, huh?” Cynthia shakes her head. Her eyes go wide. “Not that the kiss was messed up! It was good. It was great. You’re a great kisser. Have people told you that?”

“...On occasion,” Iris admits. “Was it okay that I did that? I don’t-” She swallows, frustrated with how her brain and her mouth and her body and her heart are all trying to do different things. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad or anything. By bringing up Barry and then kissing you. And I don’t think I could have a relationship with you right away but I could go to therapy and then maybe-but we’d have to take it slow. Like really slow. Really, really, really slow-”

Oh, god, why are her eyes burning again? Why is she so out of control tonight? Unknown variables, unknown variables, unknown variables. With Barry, things were… Weird, sometimes, and hard, but they were quantifiable. _Nothing_ about Cynthia is quantifiable. Nothing about her feels like it did with Barry. Nothing about Barry was _slow._ Maybe she should try slow. Maybe that’s what she needs right now.

“Breathe,” Cynthia reminds her. She moves a little closer so their legs are touching. “Slow is good, I think. Slow would be good.” She looks at Iris. “Would it be alright if I kissed you?”

Iris nods a tiny bit and Cynthia kisses her. It’s different from how _Iris_ kissed _her._ Harder, almost. Cynthia’s hair tickles her face when she kisses her. Iris watches her lean back and a tiny breathy laugh comes out of her throat. It’s a little bit wet from the tears and she hopes Cynthia doesn’t notice.

“You’re not so bad at kissing yourself, princess,” she huffs, leaning against her side a little bit. “...I’d like to see where this goes.” It almost hurts her to say that out loud. “But slowly.”

“Slowly,” Cynthia agrees, looking at Iris like she’s the most beautiful person she’s ever seen in her entire life. Maybe one day she’ll tell Iris that that’s what she is. That nobody on Piradell or anybody she’s seen on Earth-1 compares to her. She doesn’t think Iris knows that, and it feels very important to her that someone should tell her. Iris needs to know how beautiful she is. “I can do slowly. For sure.”

She’s never done _slowly_ before, but if Iris wants things to be slow, then she can be slow. If that’s what Iris wants, she’ll do it. Cynthia wonders how her father will feel about this, about her falling in love with an ordinary (even if to her, Iris is anything _but_ that) human from another Earth who makes Cynthia feel like she’s burning up from the inside, and decides that she doesn’t really care. This is her life. One of the few things left that is still hers. And she wants to spend at least this part of it with someone she loves.

Iris carefully curls their fingers together, holding Cynthia’s hand tightly. She takes a few deep breaths. Interdimensional wars and missing speedsters and evil dictators and princesses from other worlds with sunshine smiles.

What is it about unknown variables that is so _attractive?_

**Author's Note:**

> And they lived happily ever after once Iris went to therapy and got Cynthia to admit that she'd had a really hard childhood and had issues stemming from that and they were able to work that out in a healthy way.


End file.
